


Fledgling

by TheWaffleBat



Series: Crow [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Just because it's interesting, Minor Violence, Mute Corvo Attano, Pre-Canon, Some angst, not much though, way to go euhorn you fucked up a perfectly good soldier; look at him he's got anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-08-21 19:08:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16582346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWaffleBat/pseuds/TheWaffleBat
Summary: It had been a normal day at court, for the most part. Mostly the same old petty squabbles, treading the same old paths, settling the same disputes, and never getting anything important done. A normal day at court, and then assassins had come from nowhere dressed in Morley colours, spitting freedom as they went for her and her father.Just a quick look at Corvo and Jessamine before the events of the game, and why she took enough of an interest in a spy to make him her Protector.





	1. Chapter 1

Royal Protector Hanson was interred in the Kaldwin family crypt, as per royal tradition, in a sombre, small little funeral, as Hanson had always said he’d favoured. Other than an officiator who signed the death certificate, they were the only ones to see him buried. Hanson had lost his only family during a Morley riot that nearly resulted in insurrection, and they’d had the poor fortune of not leaving the city as fast as other Dunwall aristocrats.

Jessamine had been thirteen at the time, not entirely used to a Protector of her own, when she’d found him in his room.

He had been a large man - larger than life itself, it seemed sometimes. Shoulders broader than the Wrenhaven, and just as unstoppable when he flowed into battle, with all the best stories from his army days. It was the first time she’d ever seen him diminished in any way, suddenly smaller and more fragile than he should have been. He’d looked at her, red-eyed, when she sat beside him on the bed and kicked her heels against the mattress.

“I heard what happened,” She told him, biting her lip. She’d yet to have trained out of the habit. “I’m sorry.”

Hanson had cleared his throat awkwardly, patted her knee with his large hand. “Yes, well,” He’d said, folding up the letter he’d been crying over and putting it at the bottom of a drawer full of other letters. “Nothing I can do about it now.”

“Are you alright?” She’d asked quietly, and Hanson’s jaw locked, teeth gritted, just for a moment, before he softened.

“No,” He sighed, “No, I’m not. But I will be, eventually.”

Jessamine stood beside her father, and wondered how on earth he’d shouldered that grief and continued on, smiling and joking, good-natured as he’d always been and sneaking her treats from the kitchen staff, even though her father warned him it was a reward for bad behaviour. “She’s only young once, Euhorn!” Hanson had said amiably, the one time it had been brought up.

Father, gently, wrapped his arm around her shoulder, tugged just sharply enough that she leaned against his ribs. His hand smoothed away the crypt’s chill that had prickled down her arm.

Hanson was a good man - one of the best Jessamine knew. He was always kind to the servants, took his meals with them unless duty kept him upstairs. He had his turns - Hanson could never put up with the nobility for very long without saying something obscene just to make them scandalised, spiteful in a way he very rarely was to anyone else. But he was a good man, and it wasn’t _fair_ he had to die from a lucky bullet and a fool’s blade.

It had been a normal day at court, for the most part. Mostly the same old petty squabbles, treading the same old paths, settling the same disputes, and never getting anything important done. A normal day at court, and then assassins had come from nowhere dressed in Morley colours, spitting freedom as they went for her and her father, and Hanson and Peters had both leapt to their defence, cutting down two and shooting a third. But the fourth had kept Peters busy, easily blocking the slashes of his blade; fighting not to kill, not _yet_ , but keeping him away while the fifth shot at Hanson and, when that wasn’t enough to bring him down, running at him dagger drawn and stabbing him deep in the gut. Fourth had howled indignantly when he realised that Hanson had managed to angle his sword so that it took down fifth with him, and redoubled his efforts against Peters.

Two more assassins came melting from the crowd, then, and Corvo, bursting from an air vent overhead and covered in blood and dust, took them both out with crossbow bolts through their throats.

The nobility, she knew, was going to be talking about it for months. An attack on the emperor and his heir? Barely repelled by two Royal Protectors and the emperor's mute spy? It was enough to keep them busy and out of their hair as they made the real decisions for _weeks_. She'd once have given a lot just for even a moment's rest from their incessant whining; it didn’t seem like such a good thing anymore when its cost was Hanson lying cold and unmoving in a sarcophagus, his animated, jovial face frozen in a grimace.

Her father sighed. “You’ll have to pick a new Protector.”

Too soon, Jessamine didn’t say. It’s too soon, I can’t just replace him; not like this. Years of loyal service, keeping her safe in the Tower or at functions, just to be replaced the second he died? It wasn’t right. Hanson would want that, though - he’d have told her to keep her chin up, to not let the attackers see her cry, see her falter, and to choose another Protector to do what he couldn’t anymore. To spite everyone by staying safe.

He’d have laughed softly, quietly, and said that self-sacrificing way of his that he’d gone down doing a job he enjoyed, protecting someone he loved. and wasn’t that the thing that was most important? Like he was just another mindless guard patrolling the corridors.

Euhorn must have seen the look on her face. He squeezed her close, murmured, “I can delay them for a week.” He chafed away the goosebumps on her arm. “I can’t promise more than that.”

-:-

The corridors seemed very cold, and very empty, without Hanson by her side. His bulk had made it difficult to walk by his side, even in Dunwall Tower’s wide halls, without him knocking into things. He’d made a game of it, seeing how many tables he could knock into without upsetting the plant pots on their surface.

They echoed oddly, too, without his equally massive voice filling it with jokes and wry sleights against the aristocrats who demeaned him for being the third son of a minor lord. Jessamine’s heart ached terribly - she’d never hear his booming laugh again.

It was so unfair! Hanson shouldn’t have had to die! Not when another band of assassins was likely to attack, or with the nobles watching with their vulture eyes and clacking beaks and hungry, yawning gullets, waiting for any sign of weakness, any hint of timidity, so they could strike, and tear the empire apart to satisfy their greed. Hungry, they were always _hungry_ , as if they didn’t make all the money, or controlled all the trade, or dominated all the higher circles who’s waters they had to sail.

There was nothing she could do about it now except handle things as she’d always done: weathering their shifting fancies and unstable factions; try to do right by the common people while keeping the aristocracy pacified, keeping them pliant; perhaps, if she had the time, try to meet with the Serkonan ambassador who’d been hounding her father to let Corvo participate in the Protector’s Trials. Just until she became empress, and then she would make real decisions that would help everyone, from high to low born, and show the nobles that they had to listen to all the people, not just the some they barely tolerated.

It seemed a very big, very insurmountable task without Hanson - like a mountain spanning tall and wide. She could have used his longer legs to keep her walking, his jokes to keep her buoyant. But there was nothing for it now but to keep going, so she lifted her chin and kept stalking towards her father’s study for teatime.

There was a potted plant knocked over on one of the side tables, and it hurt, so Jessamine put it to rights without looking at it. “Chin up!” Said Hanson when she was fourteen and very, very alone amongst the circling sharks at court. “That’s how you beat them.”

Further down the corridor, wiping a few stray tears from her face before it smeared her makeup and she looked like one of Delilah’s paintings left in the rain, and there! The simple oak door that lead to her father’s study, warm light spilled across the stone like paint. She lengthened her stride towards it, then stopped. Her father was talking to someone?

Creeping forwards, Jessamine peered through the half-open doorway, something uneasy sat high in her chest, like particularly fat cat was sitting on her.

“You were supposed to watch them!” Roared her father, blond hair all in disarray as he paced anxiously - back and forth, back and forth. Corvo cringed away each time her father’s path took him close. “Why didn’t you warn me they were coming?”

 _They caught me buying food. Recognised I was your spy_ , Answered Corvo promptly, his hands trembling just a little. There was a bruise, an ugly black-purple, on his jaw; soft at the edges, so it was probably old. Or at least not recent. There was a shallow cut splitting it, though - scabbed over but, even so, still raw and tender-looking.

That made her father stop pacing, and he jerked Corvo’s chin down so Euhorn could peer suspiciously into his face. “You’re not hurt?”

_Escaped before they could do much._

Her father’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Corvo,” He said lowly, warningly.

Corvo tugged his face loose, and looked away, staring as though fascinated at a rug imported from Tyvia. He hunched in on himself, as he always did when he wasn’t running across rooftops. Like he was aware of how little he was accepted around the Tower.  _A beating_ , He said, hands jerking through the motions. _Didn’t have time to do anything worse. Ran to let you know as soon as I could, sir._

Her father leaned upright with a heavy sigh, patting Corvo’s arm. “I know,” He said, “I know Corvo. Well, at least they won’t try again. The documents you found might prove useful someday, and at least we got a few of them into Coldridge. Have you been to see the physician?” Corvo nodded. “Good. Get some rest, I’m sending you out to check on Pendleton. You’re to stay there until the end of the week.”

 _For what?_ Asked Corvo, handing over a tumbler of whiskey that still had a finger of drink at the bottom when her father settled out of sight, at his desk.

“Nothing in particular, just a gut feeling of Burrows’. Full sweep of the house. If you’ve got the opportunity, see if you can’t listen in on him when he’s got guests.”

Paper shuffled, knocked woodenly against the desk, and Corvo bowed at the dismissal, starting for the door. Jessamine scrambled back as soundlessly as she could, trying to find a position near the door that didn’t make it obvious she’d been eavesdropping. “Oh, and Corvo? Try not to steal everything this time; Lord Chambers is still demanding some guards to catch his magpie ghost.”

After a moment, Corvo trotted out the door. He had a long, slightly lolloping lope of a trot, head hung low and the faintest trace of shame colouring his cheeks, properly chastised. He didn’t even seem to see Jessamine, who’d worked hard to find a way to stand that was properly impatient and Not Guilty and Not Sneaky. Well, that was just rude - but forgivable, given the way his ragged, feathery hair hung around his face like a particularly tattered curtain.

Jessamine walked into her father’s study and, smiling, Euhorn looked up from his papers. “Jessamine!” He said, immensely pleased. “I’ll call for some tea.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Corvo Attano,” Announced the short, weaselly little man in charge of presenting the contenders all vying to be named her Lord Protector. There was the faintest sneer in his voice when he said it, and it didn’t go away even when Corvo stepped into line with the others and the little man flinched at the sight of Corvo’s blade.

Jessamine didn’t really understand why. He was Serkonan, yes, and so naturally the nobles considered him an interesting curiosity, and of no more worth than that; as if the only people of importance or skill were the ones to be found within Gristol’s borders. Corvo also had the bad luck to be common-born, and a very lowly one at that, as well as known to be vicious in his fights, cutting his opponent down with quick, brutal strikes - unlike the flashy, daring things Dunwall preferred.

But there was a big difference between knowing something and understanding something, and Jessamine did not understand why Father was pushing for lord Henderson’s second-born so hard. Isaac was an acceptable swordsman, little better as a marksman, and looked unpleasantly like an elongated pug - as though someone had taken the poor thing and stretched them out on a rack into a roughly human shape. He was also terribly arrogant.

No, thought Jessamine as the last two contenders were announced, Corvo had earned his place twice over, once when he proved his skill and won the Blade Verbena and once again in loyal service to her father.

Jessamine ignored the rest of the ceremony, because the choosing of a Royal Protector was mostly a slow, threatening grin to the nobility, a “Yes, We do see your assassins, they are very impressive, but see, now, Our assassin,” Spoken in the only way they’d accept, because an out and out threat was such a terribly Plebeian way to make a dagger point known. And because they were all mediocre fighters, all flash, no heat.

Or, because Jessamine preferred the quaint soldiers’ version, all cock, no balls.

Oh, but Corvo, he was a delight to watch! He was a tall man, narrow-hipped like a wolfhound and he would have looked graceful if he didn’t hunch uncomfortably, like he wasn’t sure where to put his limbs. Outside the ring he was a little ungainly, too-big feet on gangly puppy legs, hidden in a shadowed alcove like he wasn’t sure he was allowed in the corridors. But in the ring, sword pulled from its scabbard and more like an extension of his arm than an addition to it, he became something else, something lethal.

Isaac had done better than she’d thought he would, soundly trouncing everyone else but very narrowly escaping defeat in the second to last round. He stood hip cocked in the centre of the marble dias, flicking sweat-dark hair from his eyes to make the young ladies swoon and idly spinning his blade in his hand in a vain attempt to look unaffected, but he couldn’t exactly hide the twitch of his fingers when Corvo padded into place. His reputation was well earned.

“Fight!” Shouted the announcer, and Corvo leapt.

He was a blur of movement, striking and then dodging away and then striking at somewhere completely different, somewhere he shouldn’t have been able to get to that fast but somehow did. Steel sang shrilly, Isaac somehow managing to block the blows but staggering and winded by each one.

Not an ounce of superfluous movement, not a moment of wasted time; all of him boiled down into single-minded focus, analysing and assessing in the momentary pauses he took to step back with animal instinct and intensity, and then he was back, crowding Isaac to the edge of the dias.

Isaac was, of course, doomed from the very beginning, and he knew it. They were given dulled blades, ‘safe’ blades, but that didn’t mean much when it was in Corvo’s hand. Corvo dodged left to Isaac’s dodge right, and Corvo struck with lethal, silent ferocity, driving the edge into the soft flesh between hip and ribs in a nasty, crippling blow that with sharpened swords would almost certainly have killed Isaac, and Isaac went down, outside the ring. Less than a minute, said the timer set up beside the announcer, who shakily called Corvo the victor to polite clapping.

And Corvo didn’t slump, or sigh, or praise himself in any way. He didn’t even look winded. No; his job was to entertain to the nobility while the real decision-making went on behind closed doors, and with that done Corvo put his sword on the rack, hunched in on himself like a bird in a drizzle, and retreated to his lonely little chair in the corner of the competitor’s temporary pavilion to sit graceless and miserable.

-:-

The banquet, to test the prospective Royal Protector’s ability to mingle with the crowd and not embarrass himself while doing it, was traditionally held a week after the arena fights to allow any ugly bruises or swellings time to die down. Because of the bruising to Isaac's kidney, it took twice that for him to feel well enough to attend.

Jessamine didn’t particularly care that the bruising wrapped around him was still tender to the touch - he was alive, and should, frankly, be grateful that Corvo was probably pulling his punches. As much as he was able to, anyway; Jessamine didn’t think Corvo, taught to fight on the streets and so naturally more inclined towards a kind of viciousness the formal-trained nobles weren’t privy to, was very used to that, or good at it. But Isaac was alive, if showing the dark mass of purple off like it was some impressive war wound, and ignored Corvo, which was something.

She flitted around the ballroom, pretending to pay attention to the people who talked at her. They were only trying to get into her good graces _now_ because they thought they might get something out of it later - Lord Moran, in particular, was being especially nice on behalf of his rather thick son who tried to boast about his lackluster performance in the fights - once she became empress, and she also knew it would stop very quickly once she took the throne. Maybe Jessamine ought to try and make friends with them - she could make decisions without their agreement, of course, but they could cause a lot of problems if she didn’t humour them - but that just seemed silly. They could only look so far past their own noses, and talk of poor relief, higher taxes on nobility, and the enfranchisement of the middle class tended to make them squeeze their eyes closed. She’d rather leave them behind than try to drag them places they didn’t want to go.

But Father said she had to be nice to them, so she smiled and nodded and looked suitably cool and aloof as she met with the family of each applicant, enjoying the toying way she swished her Serkonan dress at them. Fashion, since Corvo had arrived, had taken on a decidedly Serkonos feel with simple, complimentary cuts of brightly coloured, light fabric. She didn’t know if it was mocking him or not, but Jessamine could only be thankful that it had, and was rather dreading the return to the unwieldy Gristolian contraptions that made it hurt to breathe and even harder to talk to people without passing out from lack of air and boredom.

All the noblewomen looked suitably impressed with Isaac and the Moran boy and the five others she didn’t remember the name of, as though their relative handsomeness was a suitable shield against bullets, but shunned Corvo, who was in his customary place in a shadowed corner. Poor boy, Jessamine thought as she watched a woman shy away when he noticed him, He was all alone.

Jessamine trotted over to him. “Hello, Attano,” She said, and offered him a tray of fancy miniature rolls of sliced ham stuck on equally miniature sticks. “Have you tried these? They taste like despair.”

Corvo looked not quite like he was itching to take up the butter knife and slice his own throat, and more like he wasn’t praying for the ground to open up and swallow him, but that he would be terribly grateful if it did. He did take one of the pieces ham, though, and politely eat it. His nose wrinkled.

Well, Jessamine could at least appreciate someone who didn’t spit it out into his wine glass as one of the others had; useful when wishing to avoid snubbing a potential ally at the dinner table. “Father didn’t believe me when I told him,” She said to Corvo. “He said that they were the finest imports from Tyvia. Those are from Morley,” She added, noticing Corvo looking longingly at the cubes of roasted ox heart, “The head cook is from there. Try it, it’s delicious.”

Cautiously, glancing at her all the while like he thought she’d slap the platter from his hands, Corvo ate one of the cubes. He ate several more, rich juice trailing down his lip, then froze completely when Jessamine snagged one; less like he was afraid of her, and more that he had to stop himself snapping like a wolfhound over a bone.

“You should try anything here that’s from Morley,” Jessamine told him, gesturing elegantly to the banquet table that was groaning under the weight of all the food. “Between you and me, I’ve no taste for anything Tyvian that isn’t their wine. See the little cakes down there? Fermented pȃté and jellied mushroom. I swear, it tastes like a swamp.”

Corvo huffed in amusement, and reluctantly set aside the platter. They stood watching the dancers for long moments, companionably silent together. “Did you not have family who could come tonight?” She asked Corvo, “I know you come from a poor family, but I’m sure my father would pay for passage and board to uphold tradition.”

He’d been still before; he was practically stone-like now, unmoving and lifeless not as a statue was lifeless, but as a cliff was. His dark eyes, which had been warm and gentle, froze over like the Wrenhaven in winter, water flowing swiftly beneath the ice. Finally, stiffly, he shook his head, and his hands jerked into the vague shapes her father insisted she learn the second Corvo came into his service. _No_ , said his head shake, and his hands added, _My mother died a few weeks after I left Karnaca._

“Oh,” She said, suddenly wrongfooted and not entirely sure how to get them back under her, “Oh, Corvo I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Corvo shrugged. Or maybe it started out as a shrug, but he just kept his shoulders up around his ears defensively, not looking at her. _It’s fine,_  He said, even though it wasn’t. He worked his jaw a little, rubbing the old scar on his throat. _Sir Henderson is trying to get your attention._

Well, Jessamine assumed he said Henderson; she recognised _Sir,_  and she recognised _son,_  and there was no one else in attendance who had ‘son’ in their name. She offered him a Morley apple in apology that he took but didn’t eat, apparently too uncomfortable with all the eyes surreptitiously tracking their every move, and shrugged. “Let him. I’ve no intention of choosing him as my Lord Protector.”

_He’s an okay swordsman,_  Corvo said. _Needs to learn how to fight to kill, not show off, but that’ll come eventually. If he doesn’t die first_ , He added with a wry little twist to his mouth. _He looks very put out._

“Let him,” Said Jessamine again, also amused by the pout. She grabbed Corvo’s arm and lifted it into the proper position, then let her hand gently rest on it. Even more amusing was the flash of alarm in Corvo’s eyes. “Dance with me.”

_I don’t know how,_  He said, looking a little plaintive.

“My father complained for weeks that you were taking so long to learn. I know you can.”

_I’m bad at it,_  He said instead. He did allow Jessamine to drag him to the floor and bully him into the proper stance, his hand awkwardly fluttering over her waist and shoulder before settling into a proper, if tentative, grip. _I’ll step on your toes, or your dress. Or something. I’ll show you up._  Oh, sweet boy, trying to protect her reputation and her feet.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” She told him, enjoying how he towered over everyone else, and started to dance.

There was a particular level of skill necessary to lead from a follow, and usually only experienced dancers attempted it, but Jessamine had been dancing since she was four years old, and formally since she was seven. She was a very good dancer if she said so herself. It also took a great deal of skill either to transform a mistake or to mask it, and she was, mercifully for Corvo, good at both of those. So it was that the dance went without a hitch, even if she had to keep it to a simpler thing than she usually favoured so that Corvo could keep up with her.

How a man so graceful in a fight, fleet-footed and so deceptively light that he barely left a mark in the training ring sand, could be so bad at dancing, Jessamine would never know. But he was good enough that a few nobles murmured something that wasn’t derision, and even if he didn’t enjoy it then at least he didn’t dislike it.

“See? Not so terrible,” Said Jessamine as she led Corvo back to his quiet little refuge. She sighed, “I suppose I have no excuse not to talk to Henderson now. Hopefully I can get out of a dance with him on account of his ‘grievous injury’.”

Corvo shrugged, like he didn’t care or like he hadn’t warmed considerably to Jessamine in the space of twenty minutes, like it meant nothing to him, and watched her leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this was where the fic started, mostly because I wrote it first and I'm an impatient bitch at the best of times, but I decided to add in the first chapter later on. I would like to add that I'm very, very bad at writing plot - I much prefer being in someone's head, rooting around and trying to find out how they work.
> 
> Jessamine, for example, always struck me as very in control, very sure of herself, with very little room for speculation. She's good at making snap judgements about people.
> 
> Corvo is the exact opposite, at least how I always characterise him. He feels like he'd be completely out of his depth in any situation that doesn't involve stabbing or poisoned canapes, and like he needs someone to take charge. Not because he can't do stuff on his own, but more because he needs an end goal to work towards, with the promise of more work. I also like to think he was at least a little fucked up before prison.
> 
> One more to go for this, and then it's another story of three chapters of lovely, lovely Samuel.


	3. Chapter 3

Father didn’t like that she chose Corvo over Isaac, but given Corvo’s performance in the ring and the banquet, and his absolutely devoted service to him as his spy and loyal guard, he didn’t really have grounds to disagree.

He did, however, complain about the headaches he was getting because of lord Henderson’s incessant bitching.

-:-

Corvo was twenty years old and Jessamine twenty seven, two years into Corvo’s service as Royal Protector and just now starting to relax into the role, when her father left on a ‘diplomatic’ visit to Morley. Diplomatic in that he was not, actually, going to use the long arm of Gristol’s navy against it, while also, diplomatically, showing that he would flex those muscles if he had to.

Dunwall Tower was curiously empty without him there.

Jessamine, restless without quite knowing why, walked the halls, listening to the rain drumming against the walls. The Month of Rain was always so dreary - it left the normally bright tower very dull and dismal, washed out like a bone bleached in the sun. She should, she knew, light a candle at least, so that she didn’t trip over the thick rugs.

She kept walking. It was nice to be without expectations for a while; to wander without having to worry about an advisor or a noble trotting up to her with another trifling, niggling little issue that didn’t need royal intervention but was them just wanting reassurance that, yes, the royal family did care about them, and they would drop everything to solve it for them. Like there weren’t bigger problems facing the world than whatever the aristocracy saw inside their own walls.

It was also nice to walk at night, knowing that the shadow flitting about above her head was keeping her safe. Corvo was aptly named; he fluttered from perch to perch - here a taxidermied head, there the top of a door - like a bird, silent as an owl except for the faintest rustle of his clothing spreading like wings.

A respectful distance away certainly, and more than quiet enough to not be distracting as she walked and thought and idly adjusted the little trinkets on the small tables. If she wasn’t used to him being up high where assailants didn’t think to look, she wouldn’t have known he was there.

An idea sparked, delicious.

Jessamine turned her steps towards her bedroom, scooping up a half-empty bottle of whiskey left abandoned on a side table in one hand and two glasses in the other, and as she went Corvo followed, ever loyal. She took him on the scenic path, listening to him slither and contort and never even touch the ground, agile in a way that was belied by his usual ungainly gait when walking. She wondered if he knew she knew he was there, and that she was testing him. When she stood in front of her bedroom doors he dropped down beside her, having somehow balanced on the chandelier.

“Hello Corvo,” Jessamine said to him, and waggled the drink at him invitingly. “Come in.”

Corvo’s eyes flicked away, to the side, like he’d been caught doing something that wasn’t, technically, not allowed, but was equally not encouraged. _I don’t want to impose_ , he said, shoulders mantled around his ears. He allowed her to take his hand and drag him inside, though, and Jessamine was under no illusions that it was allowed; if Corvo was that unwilling, he could dig in his heels and not even hell or high water could have got him to move.

He got a fire going in the grate for her, chasing the colourless chill from her room and stoking it into roaring life, and sat a little stiffly on the stool beside her armchair. There was a second armchair for him, but Jessamine didn’t press the issue. She knew Corvo wasn’t settled entirely into his new station, with all the benefits and high standing that came with it, and trying to push his boundaries tended to make him clam up, or retreat entirely.

Corvo sipped his drink. _Thank you_ , he said.

Jessamine shrugged, magnanimous. She got Corvo where she wanted him, spending time with her. A finger or two of whiskey was no steep price for that companionship. “You're welcome,” Was all she said. Overt familiarity seemed to spook him. Jessamine leaned back in her chair and studied him. “You’ve been here, what, three years now? How do you find Dunwall?”

Corvo was twenty years old and full of the lines of someone a decade older, already showing the severity they’d weather into around his mouth, the corners of his eyes. All harsh, jagged angles and bone, Serkonan harshness in his dun skin; too blade-edged a shape to fit among Dunwall’s soft nobility. A big, dumb brute who could swing a sword and fire a gun, and who couldn’t do very much more than that. A wolfhound of a man wading through lapdogs, or sheep; not showing his teeth, but his perpetual, eerie silence leaving them uncomfortably aware of them hidden behind his lips.

He wasn’t, though. Corvo was startlingly astute; he knew nothing about natural philosophy, and everything about bladesmithing. Jessamine had once got him to rant for two hours about the worthlessness of mass-produced knives when pitted against hand crafted ones, and how Serkonan artisans were the best metalsmiths in the world. She wondered if, had he not been so proficient a fighter that even the Serkonan duke took notice, that a forge would have called to him strongly enough he apprenticed himself.

The idea made her feel oddly alone, and she tried not to think about how they’d never have met if he’d followed what was clearly a truer calling than dogging her steps. Jessamine shook the thought from her head, ignoring Corvo’s look of gentle concern. “It must be terribly dreary for you after Serkonos,” She continued, as if she hadn’t awkwardly paused for slightly too long.

_It’s not so bad_ , Said Corvo, watching the fire. Jessamine narrowed her eyes at him; one of the many downsides of muteness in her friend, she’d discovered, was that unless Corvo decided to allow her to see it, she had no way to know if he was teasing or not. He was remarkably good at schooling his face, as he was doing now. Very irritating, too, when it was used against her.

_I liked the countryside_ , Added Corvo, with not a trace of wryness creasing his mouth.

“I suppose it is lovely,” Said Jessamine, conceding with a slight dip of her head, “In a quaint sort of way. But what about Karnaca? I’ve always wanted to go. I’ve been told it’s one of the jewels of the coast.”

_I never got to see most of it_ , Said Corvo, fingers curling into his palms agitatedly. _I grew up in the Dust District. The guards used to chase us away from the nicer quarters. I liked the docks, though. The water was always blue. Not like the Wrenhaven_ , He told her, for once entirely of his own volition.

Jessamine hadn’t even had to ask. She wondered if she ought to be more concerned either that she knew so little about her own Royal Protector, or that Corvo was so reticent that it took a glass of whiskey and a strange turn of mood to turn him talkative. Perhaps it was just that Corvo didn’t think he was very interesting - he was oddly shy that way.

It was a crime, though, that he _was_ so shy, so unsure of himself. His dun skin was pleasing in its way, even paled a little from Gristolian sunlessness. His dark eyes weren’t black, but they were a dark enough brown that they may as well have been, gleaming warm or cold as the mood overtook him. His jaw was strong, his chin proud, and his cheekbones were high and wide and envied by every noblewoman in court. He was pretty, too, in a rough, manly kind of way - too solidly built to be effeminate, but certainly no conventional battering-ram of a man that most of her contemporaries seemed to enjoy fantasising about in their novels.

He was sweet and gentle, keeping the toffees she liked wrapped in wax-paper and stowed away in his pockets, ready to offer one when she’d been busy too long and missed lunch. Never complained that she needed him to guard her even in her most inane, harmless duties, or that he had to suffer the still-displeased eyes of the court on him. There was an unspeakable kind of care he took in the meticulous way he scoped the grounds of everywhere and anywhere for any and all kinds of threats, and an even more unspeakable one when, on his rare days off, he still made sure she was safe.

Jessamine kissed him, because Corvo was sweet and kind and loyal, and she was certain that he, even outside the Fugue Feast, would keep it secret. Because Corvo was handsome and clever, with an understated kind of wit and a charming tendency to see the world as good.

Corvo looked like she’d slapped him, and like he very much wanted to shine light on one of the secrets shadowing his handsome eyes. He put his hands flat on his knees, palms down, as he hid behind his hair, thinking intently to himself. Jessamine let him, and topped up his drink for him; she had made her intention clear, and it didn’t matter if Corvo chose to accept or not. He was good like that.

Not looking at her, starting to undo the buttons of his shirt one handed, Corvo gripped her hand. He nodded.

Gently, smiling, Jessamine pulled him to his feet and slipped his clothes from his shoulders. Simple linen, cut for comfort and ease of movement, underneath the thick woolen coat Corvo had hung up on the coat rack by the door. He let Jessamine undress him, obeying her poking and prodding to get him to twist and turn as she needed him to, clutching his bandolier in both hands, wringing nervously.

She decided it was probably better for her to not mention it - everyone knew he hadn’t ever bedded anyone, even during the Fugue. He’d been too young when he was brought from Serkonos, and in Dunwall anyone and everyone would have been gossiping about who he took into his bed. During the Fugue, when Jessamine had her suitors, his shadow had always been outside her door, unmoving and politely deaf. He was already nervous enough as it was, watching her fingers on his skin with his mouth a tight, thin line, a tiny wrinkle between his brows - truth be told, Jessamine was nervous too; it was the first time she’d lain with someone without the comforting hiss of a bone charm in her nightstand - so it was kinder not to mention it.

The lack of a bone charm was worrying her a little, she wasn't ready for a child, but she’d worry about that when she had to. For now, there was Corvo, shirtless in the middle of her room and clutching his sheathed blade like he didn’t know what to do with himself. Well, no, he _didn’t_ know what to do with himself - Jessamine took it from him and leaned it against the bedpost, in easy reach, then put his hands on her hips, below her dressing gown.

He seemed to get what she was going for then, because he stepped close and kissed her back. It was a proper kiss too, not the fish-lipped things common to Dunwall's men; something hot and wet and intimate, still gentle because it was Corvo and he was a man of violence, yes, innumerable scars burning hot beneath her palms, collared around his throat, but he was nothing but careful with her, always worried he’d say or do the wrong thing. He sighed against her mouth, and Jessamine had to wonder if it was meant to be a moan.

She backed him against the bed, and he startled a little as the mattress hit the backs of his knees, then let Jessamine crowd him into sitting. His belt went slithering to the floor, his boots were tucked underneath the chair, Jessamine allowed him to stand just long enough to get out of his trousers and pants, and then he was naked, hands clenched in his lap.

His cock, unlike the rest of him, was perfectly average. A little thin, maybe, with a pointed head like a spear and the faintest leftwards lean, curving up towards his belly even though he wasn’t fully hard yet. Pale-ish and pink, with short, coarse hair trailing down from his belly. But it wasn’t unappealing, or unpleasant, and she had no intention of turning Corvo out the door _now_ , so she pushed him down until he lay against the pillows.

He had a hungry kind of leanness to him - muscled, but unhealthy-looking, like he was two missed meals away from starving. His bones stabbed outwards, and his skin looked like it was stretched out too tightly, a size too small for him. Jessamine traced a long, curving scar down his flank. _Sword. A pirate’s._ Jessamine poked a circular wound in his shoulder, tiny and puckered. _Crossbow training accident._ One on his belly that looked like a row of tiny stab marks, very old and faded nearly to nothing.  _Nobleman’s spur_.

She touched the one on his throat, and Corvo froze completely and utterly. “This one?” She asked quietly, suddenly not so sure she wanted to know, if Corvo was still so unsettled by it.

Corvo drew a shuddering, wet breath when she moved her hand to his shoulder. _I was four_ , He said finally, fingers stiff, _Someone cut my throat and left me to die. I don’t know who. The only reason I’m alive is that they only hit my larynx._ He scrawled a word into the skin of her arm, aphonia. _It’s why I don’t have a voice_ , He added.

Corvo looked away with a loud swallow, Adam’s Apple bobbing along the column of his throat, tendons stood out sharply through his skin. Gently, ignoring Corvo’s flinch, Jessamine kissed the scar. She wouldn’t bring it up again unless Corvo wanted her to.

Wandering Hands wasn’t unfamiliar to her - she knew just where to touch and where not to, and how to find all the little places that would make Corvo gasp and squirm, thrusting upwards, against her, deliciously. Corvo, however, wasn’t; that wasn’t any obstacle, really. If anything it gave her leave to put Corvo’s hands where they’d be put to best use. Long, rough fingers twitching uncertainly inside her, wide palm spanning her hip, stroking up to her ribs, her breast, and _good_ , he was a quick learner.

Jessamine laughed at him when he slipped inside her, warm and comfortable and _fun_ when she rocked her hips and he jerked like an unbroken horse. _Riding_. A good joke, and she laughed again. He looked like he was torn between awe, staring up at her like she was a goddess made flesh, and looking away, shame staining his cheeks with those dark little secrets seething behind his eyes. He did neither, in the end, which was a shame because he closed his eyes instead, hiding their lovely colour. But it was lovely, too, because he gave himself entirely and trustingly into her hands, allowing her to direct him at her whims, and for a man like Corvo, with the scars of someone twice his age, that kind of trust wasn’t given lightly.

Oh, he was as delightful at this as he was at fighting; some of his grace back to him, and he stopped being afraid to touch even if he didn’t move them from their place without Jessamine doing it for him. She rode him slowly at first to get him used to it, teasingly slow circles of her hips that was less about pleasure and more enjoying watching Corvo shred himself to pieces beneath her; then fast and her heart whooped like it did during a gallop through a lightning storm.

Corvo hissed with each sobbing breath, hard enough that he gave a croaky, rattling little noise on each exhale from deep in his chest as he held on with knuckles turning white and bruises sure to blossom on her hips, and she didn’t care because it was _wonderful_. Pleasure strung her tight as harpstrings, plucking in discordant, messy rhythm and when that glorious chord finally rang out Corvo slipped out on a harsh, audible sob and spilled over his belly.

Jessamine fell on him, stunned.

Not because of the sex, although that was better than she’d hoped for. She hadn’t known Corvo even had the capacity to make noise, let alone anything she could hear. If Corvo didn’t looked so wrecked, utterly hollowed out, she was sure he’d have been equally surprised.

It wasn’t like he’d howled her name, she thought, but the fact that there was _something_ was interesting. Somewhere in him was a voice that hadn’t been used since he was a very small boy. Jessamine pet through the dark hair on his chest while he panted and shivered and refused utterly to look in her eyes, and wondered if she could get him to make any more of those awful, tinny sounds.

She wondered what he would have sounded like if he did howl her name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the last of it, at least for this one. Pre-canon done, time to move on to canon time.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, another Dishonored fic.
> 
> Many years too late, because I'm guilty of the 'waiting for all the DLC to be out and buy the complete edition disk cheap in a sale' sin, but fuck it. Hooray, backstory for a story that's completed but not published yet!


End file.
